Hello Better is the new brain child of USCC's new marketing strategy lead by big Mary herself. Here is a link from Yahoo fianace about a study USCC released to support the new slogan. In my opinion this is what happens when you hire a rookie to be CEO that doesn't have industry experience. Maybe TDS could say Hello Better and upgrade the USCC executive team.

Hello Better is a new marketing campaign (gimmick) to tell customers that they are treated like friends/neighbors rather than numbers by USCC. Part of this new better treatment includes, but is not limited to:1. now charging $30 renewal fee per line2. raising the renewal eligibility time from 18 to 22 months3. raising upgrade point cost from 1000 to 1300 per month early buyout rate4. service dept no longer can fix phones in store5. charging $35 for smartphone replacements through no fault of the customer (Advanced Exchanges)6. battery swap replacements lowered to 4 times per year7. lowering employee accessory discount 8. raising early term fee on smartphones and tablets from $150 to $350

Many of these changes were made before the Hello Better campaign ever began. Also, the $35 advance exchange is a good deal. You don't have to wait to get your replacement phone or deal with the process of putting your phone through the warranty, getting a loaner phone, and then waiting almost 2 weeks to get the refurbished version of the phone you sent in.

You are getting a brand spanking new smartphone. In reality, $35 is nothing compared to what you will be getting or what you could be paying.

Maxymax, while I have not bought into hello better, nothing that you said has anything to do with the new marketing campaign. The changes in the ETF, upgrade time, early upgrade points increase, and the addition of the device activation fee were all created in June before the launch of hello better.The Service Techs have not fixed in warranty phones in the store for years. The phones have been sent to repair or replaced under advanced exchange.The change to battery swap happened when BPE launched in May.I don't purchase any accessories in the store as Amazon has them for far less expensive than the discounted price. So this I can not speak to.As to the last part, advanced exchange charges. This is just corporate greed, plain and si...(continues)

True, some of the new policies didn't start the "exact day of" Hello Better, but many started on July 1st and Hello Better started about July 5th, so they are close enough together that I consider them to be the same. If the policies like $350 term fee happened in January then I wouldn't tie them together. I think the $30 renewal fee also started on July 1st, so I consider this stuff to be a part of the Hello Better marketing. Many of these new changes happened within a week of the new marketing, so wouldn't you consider it to be tied together? Even if we go by what you say that most of these changes happened in June, that's still close enough to when Hello Better started to consider them tied together.

I love how the general consensus for many is that if you want to treat customers better then by all means you better do it for free, and when they complain that networks aren't developed fast enough and that USC is slow to get phones then that is BS too. How DARE they charge for things that have been costing the company MILLIONS.

Advanced exchange program has been around for years... It started that only about 500 smartphones per month were sent in. Manageable and reasonable cost of doing business. Smartphone sales have grown exponentially and since most phone that the MANUFACTURERS make aren't flawless machines in any way that number of advanced exchanges has gone to 21,000 per month. $8 bucks to ship... sure, cheap to a point. But not 2...(continues)

Wow, if you don't work for US Cellular, you sure seem to know a lot about it. How do you know how many Advanced Exchanges they are doing and how do you know how much it costs them? That is not public info. As far as charging for Advanced Exchanges that is bad policy. I never heard of charging someone for a warranty issue for any other product. Have you? And to say it's to cover the cost of shipping and handling, why not just have those replacement phones in stores so you don't have to ship it?

I'm glad you are okay with charging people for "great customer service." Maybe the company shouldn't have such crappy phones and they wouldn't have to warranty so many of them. The company is being cheap and trying to save a buck by offeri...(continues)

If you do not currently work for US Cellular, you probably used to (based on your knowledge of the Advance Exchange program)

Also, because McDonalds has had great success, you are assuming US Cellular will as well due to Dillon's leadership, when there has been 0 indication that this will happen...Now when this does not happen, it will be interesting to see if you will post here later retracting what you have said...

If I am wrong about USCC I will be glad to offer my apologies, but to me, just because "Im loving it" was successful (which it is debatable of how much impact it really had on McDonalds sales) it does not mean that US Cellular will all of a sudden gain a lot of customers and be j...(continues)

Totally agree with you. Well said. McDonalds was already the market leader for decades prior to Dillon ever working there. Also, fast food in a totally different segment comparison to cell phones. You're comparing apples to oranges.